As part of the University’s efforts to deeply promote aesthetic education and continuously carry out the “elegant art into the campus” activity, the 4th Beihang Art Festival kicked off on the evening of April 1 with its first performance being staged at the Sunrise Concert Hall, for which the Folk Music Troupe of the China National Opera and Dance Drama Theatre brought the students and teachers a folk music concert entitled “Picturesque Mountains and Rivers (in Chinese: Jiang Shan Ru Hua)”.

The concert opened with the folk orchestral piece “Picturesque Mountains and Rivers (Jiang Shan Ru Hua)”, which takes the famous Song Dynasty painting “A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains (Qian Li Jiang Shan Tu)” as its imaginary blueprint to convey oriental pictorial splendor through majestic music; the chamber music “The Saying Mountain - Illusion (Shan Yu Huan)” is inspired by the Tang Dynasty poet Linghu Chu’s “Fu Poem of A Mountain (Fu Shan)”, which adopts a tri-part form and presents a perfect combination of unique musical style with acoustic enjoyment and technical advancement.

The concert featured a wide variety of exceptional performances, such as “Images of Loulan (Lou Lan Yi Xiang)”, “Hymn to Grasslands (Cao Yuan Zan Ge)”, “Ode to the Sun (Tai Yang Song)”, “Pheasant Out of the Mountain (Jin Ji Chu Shan)”, and “Random Thoughts of the Great Wall (Chang Cheng Sui Xiang)”, showcasing the charm of different cultural temperament.

The encore piece “Full Moon and Good Flowers (Hua Hao Yue Yuan)” pushed the atmosphere to the climax, and the audience applauded for a long time, not only expressing their admiration and appreciation for the troupe’s superb performance, but also conveying their infinite love and absolute sincerity for the motherland and its splendid mountains and rivers.

From now until early June, the 4th Beihang Art Festival will hold more than 20 cultural activities including concerts, song and dance dramas, opera performances, art exhibitions and regular weekly mass art gatherings. Through such various activities, Beihang expects more students and teachers to benefit from the nourishment of art and participate in the aesthetic education in practical terms, so as to better promote the cultural construction of the university as a first-class university in the world.

Written by: Zhang Jiaxin

Photos by: Li Peiyang

Reviewed by: Li Jianwei

Edited by: Zhang Jiaxin, Lu Meili

Translated by: Lu Meili